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Saturday, 12 December 2015

The Pleasurama Development in Ramsgate aka The Royal Sands and some watercolour painting in Canterbury and Ramsgate.

First the watercolour painting of Canterbury Cathedral from
Chocolate Café, I think this is pretty much finished.

What I did here was to start a rough sketch of the cathedral
and then sort of get lost in it.

Here is the rough sketch.

An example of what I am drivelling on about here are the
eight windows on the towers in the foreground, these are all pretty much the
same in reality, but as you can see they can be painted in different ways.

Pleasurama is rearing its ugly head again, I have written
about this so many times and apart from council tax vanishing into fudging up
the concrete cliff wall and minimal site works in an attempt to keep the
planning consent valid, very little has actually happened in the eleven years
since the planning application was first passed.

I guess it’s time to try and summarise where I think we are
with this one.

I did a bit of work on the sketch from Miles Café Culture
looking towards Ramsgate Harbour Arches yesterday, I guess this is best
summarised as adding boatishness to the harbour in the hope that the end result
will look like the boats in the harbour.

My method is sitting in Miles and painting stuff I can
actually see, whether it will work or is working remains to be seen, the most I
can say, like the cathedral, is. What? something seems to be happening or has
happened.

I guess the main thing I hope for is something that can only
be done this way, couldn’t be done by painting from a photo or manipulating a
photo but has to be done by being there.

In this instance I think part of it is concentrating on the
detail of the buildings in the distance but letting the middle and foreground
go a bit impressionistic. Of course much of it is just what happens, related to
my mood when I do different pieces.

With Pleasurama I have roughed out what I think the key
issues are:-

1 The flood risk and sea defence, the seaward side of this
strip of land is bordered by the sea.

A. The sea defence in front of the development is wholly
council owned, was built in 1860, the council hold no plans or maintenance
record for this structure, so all liability for maintaining the sea defence for
the life of the development falls with the council.

B. The ground of the site, from the bottom up is, chalk bedrock
at about low tide level, the sand beach laid down from the cliff on top of the
chalk bedrock, the tunnel chalk spoil laid on top of the sand beach in 1860
when the site level was raised to construct the railway station there.

C. The recently constructed foundations for The Royal Sands,
these are not piled into the chalk bedrock but sit on concrete pads resting on
the old sand beach.

D. Flood risk assessment, despite the EA recommendations
vide http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ea/id2.htm
no assessment has been made, either to ascertain whether the site is suitable
for a residential development of this size or to determine what work would need
doing to build on the site. This basically runs out along the lines of height
of sea defence and the distance behind it you can build.

Conclusions.

Taking an assumed development life of 100 years, the usual
practice here would be to design and build a new sea defence to protect the
development for that amount of time.

With no flood risk assessment and the site being designated
as high risk, it would seem unlikely that it would be possible to insure or
obtain finance for the proposed dwellings there.

My understanding is that the developer intends to build on
this site based entirely on assurances from the council that it is safe from
flood and storm risk for the expected life of the development.

I would think that the best option for the council here
would to get the EA to take over the management of the sea defence here, my
understanding is that this and Ramsgate Harbour are the only parts of the
Thanet coastline sea defence not managed and maintained by the EA.

As a further note the sand beach in front of the sea defence
is not a natural feature and was built up on the wartime defences, I guess we
all know that the beach has been rapidly eroding over recent years.

Recommendation. That the council commissions a full
independent site specific flood risk assessment, the best people in the uk for
this are H R Wallingford, they did the one for Turner Contemporary.

2 Chalk Cliff.

A. The landward side of this strip of land is bordered by an
unsupported chalk cliff, this has been the subject of a number of severe
collapses during the last hundred years, the most recent being in 1967.

B. When the development first gained planning consent I made
remonstrations to the council which resulted in the cliff façade being
partially assessed. The exposed part of the façade was visually examined, vide http://thanetonline.com/cliff/id2.htm

My intention was that the council conduct a survey of the
cliff structure aimed at making the cliff façade suitable for building a
residential development adjacent to it, what actually happened was that the
structure was deemed to have a short serviceable life and be in need of urgent
repairs, it was discovered that it was so dangerous that the cliff top footpath
had to be fenced off until these repairs had been completed.

C. The normal approach to building a residential development
next to an unsupported chalk cliff would be to either build it far enough away
that future cliff collapses wouldn’t damage the development, or design a
suitable cliff façade and construct this first.

The council seem to have taken the temporary repairs to the
concrete weathering façade as meaning that the site below it is suitable for
development, without any report saying this is the case.

The existing façade wasn’t intended to prevent the cliff
form collapsing, it isn’t a cliff support structure like the other cliff
support structures in Ramsgate, Harbour Arches, Harbour Parade arches and
Marina Road Arches, all of which have brick structures at right angles to the
cliff face, to support the cliff.

D. The existing façade can be split into three parts, the
squared portal part at the lift end of the structure, this appears to lack the
design foundations for the support pillars, the contractor investigated one and
found it was missing, vide http://thanetonline.com/cliff/index.htm
I would assume the others will be the same; the rounded portal part which dates
from the major collapse in 1937, this is a well constructed concrete structure
nearing the end of its life (usually about 100 years for this type of
structure); the brick structure at the Augusta Stairs end, this dates from 1860
about half of this collapsed in 1967, recent site excavation shows that the
central part has no foundations.

E. The cliff façade repairs 2009, in 2009 the cliff façade
was scaffolded pointed and coated, this work was supervised by the council’s
engineers, cost £900k, shortly after it was finished cracks started to appear
in the façade.

At the end of 2009 I went onto the site and examined the
façade, one of the portal infills was bulging so badly that I contacted the
council and they replaced it in 2010.

Then from 2011 to 2013 I made representations to the council
to have the cliff surveyed again, which they eventually did and resulted in the
recent work.

F. The first action the council should make with regard to
the cliff façade is commission a survey related to developing the site, as
opposed to surveys that result in emergency repair work to a structure with a
short serviceable life.

If it is considered that the structure, or part of the
structure can be used with a residential development below it for part of the
development’s life then, the distance between the development and the cliff
façade required to facilitate maintenance and eventual replacement should be
calculated.

At the moment we seem to have a situation where on the one
hand the developer has investigated aspects of the cliff façade and found
serious structural defects, but on the other hand council officers have assured
the developer that the structure will be safe and viable for the expected life
of the development. What appears to lacking is any survey report showing how
the cliff could be maintained with the development three metres away from it.

Conclusion.

The main difficulty here is that the council appears to be
saying that it will take over the liability of maintaining the cliff façade
with a likely major pointing and every five years, until the façade has to be
replaced. The council doesn’t seem to have done the necessary investigations to
determine how much space they will need to maintain and replace the façade once
the development has been built.

3. The most recent work.

Evidently something has gone wrong with this, up until this
week the situation was that the scaffolding had been removed and the work
finished.

Earlier this week there was a rumour that the wrong paint
had been used, this was followed by the council issuing a statement that the
job wasn’t in fact finished and that the final paint coating would be applied
in the spring.

Obviously most of us have had our houses cleaned, filled and
repainted and are aware that the scaffolding – which is often he most expensive
part of the work – isn’t removed before the final coat of paint is
applied.

4. The new developer.

I guess most people had hoped that when the various offshore
and onshore versions of SFP Ventures failed to develop the site would return to
the council and we would see new plans for the site.

Reading between the lines it appears that Cardy
Construction, who are a reputable local developer took over SFP in lieu of
debts to them accumulated when they were the main contractor.

It appears that they now either own the site or have an
option to buy the site from the council, they also appear to have assurances
from the council saying that the cliff won’t fall on it and the sea won’t
inundate it and wash the sand, the foundations stand on, away.

Back in July I contacted the Cardy Construction, who up
until then had been forthcoming both on the various safety issues I had
reported to them and on the progress of the development and got the following
answer, effectively saying they had agreed with the council no to say anything
about the development:-

“Dear Michael

Thank you for your email. And trust that you are keeping
well.

It has been agreed that all press releases etc will be
coordinated and facilitated via TDC

Kind Regards

Michael”

Obviously I have contacted the council several times over
the last year, asking them in various ways; what is going on. The main problem
here is the council don’t seem to have an office tasked with coordinating the
development.

Various phone calls to the council leave me with the feeling
that Pleasurama is a bit of a hot potato, which no one wants to hold on to.

So we have a local developer with the option to build, plans
which seem to have been fudged together by a group of people who didn’t take
into account the basic limitations of the site.

However they are a major local developer with a good track
record in this area, so what will happen next is anyone’s guess.

Well John, every so often I feel obliged to try and do something, Serendipity there is no mileage in looking for recrimination towards past council officers, they do what they do, get a large severance payment and along comes another one, if you are looking for some sort of Watergate enquiry perhaps you should look abroad.

This really is just a rough daft of where we are now, prior I suppose to yet another communication to the council, both asking what is going on with the development and how they plan to address the main site limitations cliff and sea.

Please provide any report saying:- This site sitting on an EA designated high risk flood zone doesn’t need a flood risk assessment. How large a gap needs to be left between the cliff face and the building to facilitate maintenance. That the cliff façade is in a condition that is safe to build a large residential development under it.

Obviously as none of the main issues ever get addressed the cost to anyone engaged in any business activity in Ramsgate racks up, this is a seaside town and the main plot of land adjacent to the main attraction – the beach – has been a derelict building site for years now and so far no one involved in making this the case has ever managed to come up with a convincing argument that the site is suitable for anything more than summer amusements.

During all of this time there really doesn’t seem to be any real reason why the site couldn’t have been surfaced and used, funfairs and parking, apart from the fact that it would draw business away from Margate where the local councils have sunk both our money and money that they don’t have to spend.

Two bedroom modern sea view apartment on the market in Ramsgate for £340k, three bedroom for £395k (rightmove.co.uk). I guess apartments right on the sands would cost more. The down side is that the government are making it less attractive for individuals to buy to let.

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